Subscriptions overview

Subscriptions allow you to charge your customers a periodic fee for using the service.

Owl Telecom offers 1000 minutes to the EU for a monthly recurring charge of $9.99.

To start charging customers a recurring fee for each billing period, you need to create a subscription plan in PortaBilling and assign it to a customer. In a subscription plan, you should define:

1. When the subscription charges should apply. You can charge your customers for an active subscription:
   • At the end of the billing period
   • At the beginning of the billing period (in advance)
   • Progressively each day of the billing period
2. When the subscription should be activated. You can configure the subscription to be activated right upon assignment, or at a later time – either on a specific date or upon the account's first usage.
3. Subscription fees. PortaBilling allows you to set three types of charges for each subscription:
   • Activation fee (optional)
   • Periodic fee. When a customer signs up for or cancels a subscription in the middle of a billing period, you can charge either the prorated or full periodic fee. Also, you can configure PortaBilling not to charge customers for the days when they don't have access to the service. This may be necessary based on market conditions or local regulations.
   • Early cancellation fee (optional)

You have the flexibility to offer your customers promotions, discounts, or apply markups which will adjust the subscription fees.

Additionally, you can configure PortaBilling to automatically deduct the subscription fee charged in advance from customers’ credit cards. This ensures that customers can use the available funds on their balance specifically for pay-as-you-go charges, such as for calls, and guarantees a predictable cash flow for you as a service provider.

Subscriptions can be assigned to customers in two ways:

• In conjunction with a product.
  Example

  A user activates an add-on product on the self-care web interface, and the corresponding subscription is automatically assigned.

• Independently from any specific product.
  Example

  A customer wants to share 1000 minutes for $9.99 between all their accounts. An admin manually assigns the $9.99 subscription to the customer directly.

Find further details on subscription functionality:

1. Subscription activation and charging methods
   • Activation mode
   • Charging methods
     • At the end of the billing period
     • In advance
     • Progressively
2. How much to charge for subscriptions
   • Fees
     • Activation fee
     • Periodic fee
       • Adjust periodic fees for non-monthly periods
       • Adjust the periodic fees for an active subscription
     • Prorated/full periodic fee
       • Prorated fee
       • Full (non-prorated) periodic fee
     • Early cancellation penalty
       • How to cancel a subscription
       • Fixed cancellation fee
       • Cancellation penalty set as remaining subscription charges
       • Cancellation penalty set as a sum of discounts applied
   • Promotions, discounts, and markup
     • Promotional periods
       • Incomplete promotional periods
     • Subscription discounts and markup
       • Customer discounts
       • Account discounts
       • Adjust a recurring fee for a specific subscription
   • Rounding (to choose what rounding method to apply to the charged amount for subscriptions)
3. Sale modes based on business scenarios
   • Sale mode: Mass-market
     • Subscriptions assigned to product
       • Main product (mandatory) subscriptions
       • Add-on product (optional) subscriptions
       • Changing the subscription plan for a product
   • Sale mode: Customized
     • Subscriptions assigned directly to customer
     • Subscriptions assigned directly to account
   • Subscriptions applied more than once
4. Applying subscriptions in advance
   • Multi-month prepaid plans with a discount
   • Automatic service suspension if unable to charge for subscriptions in advance
     • For prepaid customers
     • For debit accounts
   • Advanced features
     • Auto-charging for subscriptions
     • Applying subscriptions for several billing periods in advance
5. Applying or waiving subscription charges
   • When no service was provided
     • When subscription was activated/canceled in the middle of billing period while no service was provided
   • When an in-advance subscription was canceled early